Following my glorious first sample of Viking, I ordered this by mistake, not realizing “Viking Cologne” was in fact something different. I dealt with a very nice seller on Reddit and got a 10ml decant of this. First odd thing I noticed, opening the box, despite an incredibly careful and thick overdone bubblewrap packing job, the inside of the box smelled of cologne. I thought maybe the bottle had leaked in transit. On examination, it hadn’t, it was dry, tightly sealed, and as full as the reddit photo had showed. Fascinating, Captain.

So I sprayed this on immediately, I couldn’t wait… and my nostrils were immediately assaulted. They literally burned.

Now, several of my favorite Creed samples, I’ve spent the first few minutes wondering what all the hubbub was about, before they really opened up. So I’m patient with Creeds. But I will confess, this came on like getting splashed in the face with alcohol, and for a brief moment or two I wondered if I’d been sold a fake.

It wasn’t very long before the unmistakeable Creed-y base emerged. And the Creed-y base is very, very good by me. Soon this had some beautiful, very masculine notes. I cannot say I was for a moment disappointed.

I did notice a few things, though. I wasn’t smelling that much of that velvety, broad, rosy accord that I love so much and commented on in my Viking review. It was a mite bit more citrusy than I remembered, and I dislike citrus in general, but Creed manages to do citrus better than most. And, I wondered what was missing. I thought back to my sample of Himalaya, which struck me as “generic Creed base with nothing on top of it”. This had a little more than that, but the reminder was there, and it was strange, I knew I hadn’t felt that way with the first sample.

I have to say the longer it dried down, the longer I continued to be perfectly happy with it. The masculine thing. I’m sure the more experienced fragheads on here know what that note is but to me it’s just a really excellent, unassuming, manly smell that I would not mind always smelling like. As it dried down I recognized something woody, probably cedar, which I also didn’t specifically recall being noticeable in my Viking sample.

It didn’t last all that long, a couple hours and it was gone except for maybe a cedar trace. But, Creed, you know? All in all, I did notice some differences, and I’m not intimately familiar with Viking yet, I couldn’t picking it out of a lineup, I only tried it twice, loved it, and wrote a review. But nothing about this experience said, “You got something completely different from that thing you absolutely loved trying out once a week or two ago.” With all the talking people do about batches and such, I thought, ok, different batch.

Then tonight, I looked at the bottle, and noticed the word “Cologne” specifically on it. I know about Aventus vs Aventus Cologne, so, suddenly, something clicked.

It doesn’t change the fact that before I found out it wasn’t the same thing, I spent an entire night thinking, “Man, some of the details seem different than last time, but still, this smells soooooooooooooo good.”

I wonder what most people would have said in their reviews if, like me, they hadn’t gone into it thinking of the “Viking Cologne” positioning. The rude bite of the very opening is undeniable and I think a lot of people would have called that out no matter what. Likewise the citrus note. But, damn, put up with this thing throwing a tantrum for 45 minutes, and it’s worth it. It’s funny, I have a friend I’ve been keeping up-to-date with my fragrance adventures, and I’d even imagined telling him, “Here, try this. Just put up with it for the first half hour, maybe 45 minutes. Wait that out and you’ll see.” Everything comes into balance eventually and it’s still got, at absolute minimum, that special something that Creed always manages to bring to the table. It smells really good, if I ever left the house I can imagine it being a complement-getter.

I have no doubt I’ll finish using this 10ml sample. For Creed prices I can think of others I’d rather spend the money on for a full bottle, but, if there’s actually something more reasonably priced that is genuinely comparable to this, as some reviewers suggest, I’d definitely still consider picking it up. And if it was much cheaper than Viking proper I’d definitely consider it an acceptable substitute for daily wear, and save the real stuff for special occasions, like leaving the house.